4 No-Nonsense Tips For Happier Relationships

“The best relationship advice is the no-nonsense kind. By many measures, my relationship with my current boyfriend, known to y’all here as The Cowboy, is the first healthy relationship I’ve had. Though it’s easy to sit back and look at the failed relationships of my past and blame the men who “hurt” or “betrayed” me, I am certain that my relative success this time around has had a lot to do with me changing key behaviors that sabotaged me before. I’ve listed four big relationship tips here for you.”

Stop expecting bad things

I had a rough childhood, and I got good at certain survival skills that hurt me as a grownup. I was mistrustful of everyone. Defensive. Overly independent, able to disconnect from people like they’d never mattered. This was rooted in a subconscious belief that I didn’t deserve love, and it ended up as a self-fulfilling prophecy, again and again.

This time around, I made a conscious effort to act like everything would be okay, even when I went into panic mode. I followed Dr. Phil’s relationship advice, and faked it ’til I made it. It worked. I am no longer in the habit of expecting bad things to happen to me. I now assume good things will come. And they do.